Carter and Barack are selling 'success' the same way Bully Boy Bush and Donald Rumsfeld once did.

You have to create the myth of 'success' to sell a disaster.

The Iraq War is ongoing and it is a disaster.

To get support for it, even a War Hawk as beloved as Barack needs something more than a cheesy grin to sell it.

You need the lie that 'success' has arrived -- at last.

That the fabled turned corner has emerged.

And this lie is supposed to trick people into believing that an obviously unwinnable war has suddenly transformed into winnable.

There's no such thing as a recovering War Hawk.

At least recovering alcoholics grasp that insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.

War Hawks repeatedly lie that you can do the same losing thing again
(and again and again and . . .) but somehow get different results.

So Barack and other War Hawks -- along with enablers and co-dependents
(largely in the press and in elected office) -- act as though a near 16
month bombing campaign has accomplished amazing things when it's really
accomplished nothing to brag of.

Yes, some members of the Islamic State have been killed.

So have a lot of civilians.

And that and the persecution of Sunnis will continue to aid the Islamic
State in recruiting new members -- and recruiting them at a faster pace
than they can be killed.

If the US government had, under Barack's orders, spent the same 16 or so
months trying to facilitate reconciliation in Iraq, seriously trying,
things might be better.

As it stands now, the decisions made by the US government have only fostered the growth of the Islamic State.